The growing demand for online streaming radio services has come at the expense of traditional radio apps. With the likes of Pandora, Live365 and Slacker Radio occupying a lion’s share in the world of radio streaming, the demand for traditional PC apps such as Radio Sure has gone down. Remember those days when we would actually install an app to listen to the online content? Well, with the rise of streaming services, nowadays, only a handful of people now resort to downloading the app on the laptop or desktop.
What is Radio Sure?
Radio Sure is more of an app as compared to an online streaming site. It is one of the most popular software when it comes to recording and listening to radio files. Not many people know about it but by downloading this app, you can stream top-quality music from the best radio stations around the world.
It has great features with a simple interface which makes it easy to use. On top of that, there are a lot of radio stations which can be sorted in more than one way – language, country, genre and title. Apart from that, you can even add or delete stations from the network.
Radio Sure – A RadioZilla alternative
Back in the days, RadioZilla served the audience – A free Windows application that allowed users to not only listen to the radio stations from around the globe but even download the songs without requiring any third-party applications. As time passed, RadioZilla failed to live up to its expectations and thus created a room for its toughest competitor – Radio Sure. On Radio Sure, there’s absolutely no dearth of content as you can access 17,000+ channels with the ability to add or delete stations.
History
Radio Sure as a service doesn’t have a clear description of its ownership. All we know is that the software was developed in 2008 by a company called “The Best Ware Studio”. As per the developer, Radio Sure because of its cutting-edge design and ease of use was able to cut through the competition quite easily.
If you were to bank on its data – Radio Sure has an extensive database of web-based radio stations in one platform. There were nearly 40,000 individual units as of December 2017. Though out of these, only 20,000 might be genuine stations as users can add and remove their own stations as well. Thus, when it comes to quality content, you’d probably browse no further than the first 10-20 pages.
Why should you stream on Radio Sure?
Unlike other streaming services, you can listen to Radio Sure in more than one way – using the main interface, using the small bar or minimizing the taskbar. That’s the leverage you get with traditional Windows apps. There are many reasons why you should stream using this app.
Recording feature
Though this feature might sound ancient as opposed to what we have today, it is really handy. The ability to record your favorite station is a great alternative to offline listening. Today, the services offer offline listening as part of a premium plan – with Radio Sure, you can record content from your favorite channel. Sure, there are limitations to the number of simultaneous recordings but it still remains an important feature.
Quality Feed
Radio Sure has a strong feed that loads quickly. I tested more than two dozen stations and I didn’t find any hiccups in the form of signal cutouts or audio breakage. The testing was smooth. I liked the content I saw within the app and was able to navigate and test out different features with relative ease.
Clear interface & Easy Setup
One of the simplest yet the most appealing part about Radio Sure is that it is extremely easy to setup. You can download the app and once that’s done, you can run the software and carry it on a USB stick. With no third-party offers, the interface remains super clean and simple. There are just a few buttons that help you navigate across different panels.
Configurable settings
You can actually crossfade between stations – How cool is that? Using the options menu, you can enable or disable features such as crossfade, show song titles in the system tray or modify output destination. Apart from that you can choose the bitrate, avoid duplicated recordings, split recordings by track, select audio device, enable global hotkeys, and configure proxy settings.
Easy content consumption
As soon as you start the app, you’ll find the radio stations immediately. You can view the stations and sort them on the basis of language, genre, title or country. You can also access the search function so you can find a piece of content directly. Add to the fact that someone thought about these innovative sorting features in 2008 – makes the whole process even sweeter.
You can add stations to Favorites, record a song in an MP3 format and adjust the volume. Watching and utilizing these features sometimes makes me wonder that with the present approach, developers are dumbing down the streaming model and capabilities.
Design
Radio Sure provides instant access to a world of radio stations but it also provides you access to perhaps the worst radio website. I mean a default 2011/2012 WordPress theme with no graphical elements on the website? And that’s supposed to be premium? Just visit the website and you’ll feel as if someone started the project and lost their interest halfway. Sure, I get it that it’s not an online streaming network and thus the website appearance doesn’t matter. But, c’mon, it cannot be this bad.
Header
With absolutely no backdrop, sections or layers, Radio Sure has the bleakest header with five options – Download, Features, Stations, Forum and Feedback. Out of these options, Download, and Features options have sub-categories which have dedicated inner pages.
Hero Section
While most of us expect a creative, immersive banner or a slider on the homepage, Radio Sure features an Editor’s review from softonic.com. Think about it! It’s your website, I visit and the first thing I see as a user is some third-party platform offering testimonial about your website? Doesn’t this part belong before footer? It looks completely off in the hero section and makes the entire website look even worse.
Body
Finally, some graphical elements can be seen in the body section. As you scroll down, you’ll find Radio Sure’s popular radio channels with nine tiny thumbnails which yet again have a poor graphic approach. You’d see such design from Apple back in 2007. As you scroll further, you’ll find other content related to but not limited to Preinstalled radio stations, Radio Player, and Radio Skins.
Footer
The entire website follows the same lackluster text-only approach which is evident in the footer section as well. There are just five options in the footer – Register, Log in, Entries Feed, Comments feed and WordPress.org.
Inner Pages
Upon entering the inner pages, you’ll find the list of stations with Station Name, Genre, Country, and update date. Hundreds of radio channels are updated each day. These include channels such as Hit 40 Radio, Pure FM, Variety 80s, Vinyl Days, KSDJ 90.7 to name a few. The only part I like on the website is the ability to edit a station – with a proper form like structure, you can add information on the network.
Content
With over 20,000 legit radio channels, you get access to the top radio stations available across the web. With Radio Sure, you can listen to radio stations from any genre and any country. You can use the sort feature to choose a station you love. You don’t need to compromise on content and you can listen to the best radio stations on the globe. Whether you’re into music or radio shows, you’d definitely find something that suits your taste.
Some of the top radio stations on the network include 97.7 music, 1.FM, PureFM, ShoutedFM, Sky.FM, Serve.FM, Energy, 101.ru to name a few. Apart from channels, you can choose from a wide range of genres such as Hip Hop/R&B, Pop, EDM/Dance, Rock, Country, Classics, Vinyl, and Metal to name a few.
Desktop/Mobile experience
I downloaded Radio Sure on my desktop and had a good time. There are hundreds of quality radio stations on the app which will make you cling on to it. Again, it’s the app that offers quality, not the actual website. I didn’t like the website on my desktop screen and similar was my experience with the mobile site. As of the streaming experience, it was top-notch at a steady 128kbps quality.
Plans & Pricing
You can download Radio Sure for free. However, if you want to enjoy premium features, you’re required to pay $9.99.
Suggestions I have for Radio Sure
While I don’t have any issues with downloading an app, I do have an issue trusting a platform. For a general user looking for an app, he/she might be dissuaded after looking at the website – which does appear spammy with little to no visual appeal. Thus, I’d advise the developers to work on it.
Conclusion
Since the program has a large database of content, it uses a fair amount of memory. The response time is decent and the streaming quality is steady. You should check Radio Sure if you’re looking for a simple user-friendly Internet radio player with customization options.
